The Lead

In the opening address at the last General Convention, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori spoke of the "great Western heresy" of individualism and, in her view, an excessive focus on individual salvation. This made for much comment in blogs, columns and sermons ever since.

In response to these, she has written an essay "Salvation's goal: returning all to right relationship" clarifying and expanding on the ideas of her sermon.

"Individualism" which she says means that the interests and independence of the individual necessarily trump the interests of others as well as principles of interdependence, "is basically unbiblical and unchristian."

In my address, I went on to say that sometimes this belief that salvation only depends on getting right with God is reduced to saying a simple formula about Jesus. Jesus is quite explicit in his rejection of simple formulas: "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matt 7:21).
He is repeatedly insistent that right relationship depends on loving neighbors – for example, "those who say, ‘I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen" (1John 4:20). The Epistles repeatedly enjoin the followers of Jesus to "give evidence of the hope within you" (1Pet 3:15ff), that "faith without works is dead" (James 2:14-26), that our judgment depends on care for brother and sister (Rom 14:10-12) and that we eat our own destruction if we take Communion without having regard for the rest of the community (1Cor 11:27-34).

Salvation depends on love of God and our relationship with Jesus, and we give evidence of our relationship with God in how we treat our neighbors, nearby and far away. Salvation is a gift from God, not something we can earn by our works, but neither is salvation assured by words alone.

Salvation cannot be complete, in an eternal and eschatological sense, until the whole of creation is restored to right relationship. That is what we mean when we proclaim in the catechism that "the mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ" and that Christian hope is to "live with confidence in newness and fullness of life and to await the coming of Christ in glory and the completion of God's purpose for the world." We anticipate the restoration of all creation to right relationship, and we proclaim that Jesus' life, death and resurrection made that possible in a new way.

Read the rest here.

Comments (3)

This is a helpful clarification.

I agree with the PB about the heresy she is trying to confront. I don't think her original sermon gave sufficient weight to the role of assent to the community's creed in bringing about right relationship with God and neighbor. Faith is both assent (assensus) and trust (fiducia). It is formed by charity, which is friendship with God. As 1John teaches, it is impossible to love God, whom we can't see, if we don't love the brother or sister we do. The great dogmas of Christianity, Trinity and Incarnation, ground a form of self-giving love that characterizes the Kingdom and the Church as its anticipatory, sacramental sign. Those who fail to assent to the creed may be anonymous Christians or even heterodox Christians but their relationship with God and neighbor is disordered in some important ways.

Precisely because individualism is a heresy, Christianity demands an ecclesial communal form, and verbal formulae are one way that the Body achieves coherence. The historic, ecumenical creeds leave a lot more room for difference and disagreement that the Protestant confessions. Anglicanism has always seen itself as maintaining the faith and order of the undivided Church in such a way as to remain open to legitimate doctrinal development.

The PB is absolutely correct that heteropraxy is at least as problematic as heterodoxy. I would much rather have my daughter grow up to be a Unitarian than a fundamentalist Christian.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are united when we conceive of orthodoxy as right praise: "not only with our lips, but in our lives."

Posted by Bill Carroll | August 28, 2009 11:29 AM

Fr Bill,

Maybe you can elaborate, correct, etc. I think what troubles in her explanation is use of terms in a certain way. I think using our Anglican "reconciliation" for salvation helpful. It's a relational term that pulls together the personal-in-the-social. Reconciliation is accomplished once-for-all in Jesus Christ. That reconciliation is working out itself in and among us here and now. There is an eschatological tension to be sure, but the reconciliation promised is already reality in Christ. That's where her explanation trips me up. It vascilates back and forth between on salvation leaving an impression that we accomplish the Kingdom, rather than in Maurice's words, the Kingdom is already accomplished. We live out of this spaciousness. There is a real freedom here to live for others. As the close of my last chapter recommends, we need a developed sense of our ecclesial Christology (not just ecclesiology). And of course, given our Anglican Word and Spirit emphasis, this requires Pneumatology as well.

Posted by Christopher Evans | August 28, 2009 5:04 PM

I don't dispute this, Christopher. I believe that an emphasis on the completeness of the reconciliation of humanity and therefore the cosmos with God in Christ is absolutely crucial. At the same time, we need to be conscious of the fact that we are still in Adam, being transfigured, crucified, and raised by the indwelling Spirit as we are made holy. What Jesus is, we already are in him, through the Spirit that dwells in us, binding us together in Christ, as adopted children and joint heirs of the Father. But it does not yet appear what we shall be. When Jesus appears in glory, we shall be like him. Precisely because we already live in him.

Posted by Bill Carroll | August 29, 2009 3:37 AM

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